Freerunners become Light Emitting Dudes on Bangkok’s streets at night

Whenever I see freerunners I am impressed by their acrobatic abilities and bravery when doing some of the bigger jumps, but I don’t find watching them to be that interesting. That was, until someone decided to put them in LED-covered suits and have them perform at night.

The video above is the result of just such an experiment recorded in Bangkok, which is fittingly called Light Emitting Dudes.

Freerunning at night is not something I’ve seen before, and must be that much more difficult to perform due to a lack of visibility on the part of the runner. But it’s even more difficult for the viewer trying to watch in total darkness. Adding LEDs not only fixes that problem, but allows the motion of the freerunner to be recorded and played back as if leaving a ghost trail behind. For me, it also makes their movement look a lot more interesting.

These suits were hastily put together by combining morph suits, LED light strips, duct tape, and some batteries. Performing some of the more acrobatic moves broke LEDs, which needed to be replaced, and batteries constantly needed changing, too. In the end, the result is more a show of the potential such suits have in nighttime freerunning shoots.

I’d like to see this idea taken further. A better LED suit with a lot more LEDs attached, more cameras to record the action, and a video that shows off more of the movement of the freerunners over time. But Frank Sauer and his team should be commended for coming up with the idea and managing to see it through on a shoestring budget. It’s bound to be copied multiple times.